


Santa Baby

by santiagone



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Christmas, F/M, FitzSimmons Secret Santa, Fluff, Good times, Humor, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, also, basically just the fluffiest fic in existance, because why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 17:31:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5594842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/santiagone/pseuds/santiagone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This has been a long time in coming, hasn’t it?” Jemma whispers. She is so close to him she can count every eyelash, can see the lines on his lips, can take in every little aspect that makes Leopold Fitz so… him. Eyes like his gran and nose like his dad and hair like his mum; Jemma thinks she may have stumbled across the perfect genetic formula.</p><p>FitzSimmons Secret Santa gift; written for the lovely bit-of-a-booknerd!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Santa Baby

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year! I wish you all the happiest year, and especially so to my Secret Santa bit-of-a-booknerd.  
> I wrote so many references here, so kudos to you if you spot them! Also yes the dividers are Christmas songs and I'm not even sorry  
> Here's to 2016!

“This has been a long time in coming, hasn’t it?” Jemma whispers. She is so close to him she can count every eyelash, can see the lines on his lips, can take in every little aspect that makes Leopold Fitz so… _him_. Eyes like his gran and nose like his dad and hair like his mum; Jemma thinks she may have stumbled across the perfect genetic formula.

“A bit, yeah. Seems like you’re not the first in everything,” he remarks, and he’s trying to act nonchalant but she can see the brew of excitement and anticipation in his eyes.

She tilts her head at him, a coy smile curling her lips. “Yeah? How do you figure that?”

“I’ve been waiting for you to catch up.” Fitz grins at her, and maybe she’s dreaming it up, but he seems to drinking her in as well. They’ve shared flyaway kisses and lingering touches and fierce embraces before, and yet, none of them have ever been as intimate as this one moment.

That doesn’t stop Jemma rolling her eyes, though. “Don’t say it like it’s my fault!”

“I’m not!” Fitz says quickly, but she can still see his teeth through his smile.

“You _are_.”

“Well, it’s not exactly _my_ fault, either.”

He’s all huffy now, in that adorable way of his, and if this were any other situation she would quite happily throw a pillow at him. But it’s not a different situation, and so instead she gives him a placating look and reaches up to tug gently on the lapels of his shirt.

“Mmm, let’s just blame it on Skye, then,” she murmurs, pressing closer, and she just about falls backwards in exasperation when Fitz creases his eyebrows at her.

“Skye? What’s she got to do with this?”

“Leopold Fitz,” she says, trying to be cross even though she’s smiling like a fool, “you are somehow the most intelligent person I know, while simultaneously being the most clueless prat I have _ever_ met.”

Her hands have somehow slid up to his neck, and when she tugs on his collar for emphasis, his eyes widen in realisation.

“Oh.. you mean you want me to.. I should have..”

“ _Yes_ ,” she tells him emphatically, before tacking on, “Dork. Do I honestly have to spell it out for you?”

“Well, you _are_ weirdly impressive at Scrabble-”

And with that _amazing_ line, she rolls her eyes, pulls him closer, and presses her lips to his.

 

_Four Hours Earlier.._

 

Christmas Eve is a time of celebration, joy and family. For many, it means settling around a table with roast chicken and family members, pulling Christmas crackers and watching cheesy Christmas films, setting out plates of cookies and milk for Father Christmas.

For Jemma Simmons and Leopold Fitz, Christmas Eve means curling up on the couch together, marathoning Doctor Who and Mythbusters with hot chocolate and crisps, talking into ungodly hours of the night.

And no, it’s not the most _festive_ of things, but it’s tradition. Ever since that first lonely Christmas when Fitz had shown up at her doorstep, looking for some solace away from the Christmas Carolers, this is how it’s always been. Just her and Fitz, in her quaint little apartment, all to themselves because her flatmate Skye has flown home for Christmas.

Tomorrow they’ll celebrate with their families and spread Christmas cheer and be generally festively appropriate, but for today Jemma’s perfectly content just to do _this_.

Fitz is her best friend. There’s no one else she’d rather spend Christmas Eve with. Fitz is kind and selfless and smart and… _currently burning the popcorn_.

“Fitz!” she cries, leaping up from the couch to sprint to his side. “I thought I told you to keep an eye on it!”

He somehow manages to look indignant even though he’s flapping frantically at the pot with a tea towel and acting rather flustered. “I _was_! I put the kernels into the pot and then waited, and then I lifted the lid off and now look what’s happened!”

“Oh, Fitz! Did you even look at the instructions?” she chides, throwing her arms up in an exaggerated fashion.

“Instructions? Who needs instructions for _popcorn_?”

“Well, obviously _you_ do-”

“Please, like _you_ can lecture me about cooking-”

“-honestly, who burns popcorn-”

“-don’t think I’ve forgotten about that turkey you tried to cook-”

“-even children could do it - and hang on, Skye was in charge of the turkey!”

Fitz crosses his arms. “Oh yes, I’m sure she was.”

“She _was_ , actually! Besides, it’s not my fault, who’s bloody idea was it to come up with Thanksgiving anyway?”

Jemma’s pretty certain they can go on all day (after all, it’s happened before), but before they can escalate to a whole new level of bickering, there’s a shrill wail from their ceiling, and they simultaneously glance up, argument momentarily forgotten.

Fitz flashes her a sheepish grin. “You get the smoke alarm, I’ll rescue the popcorn?”

“Pfft, as if I’m letting you _anywhere_ near the popcorn..”

That’s how their afternoon starts, filled with bickering and kitchen catastrophes and each other, and as Jemma pauses from sifting through the burnt popcorn (come on, there’s got to be _something_ salvageable in here), she can’t help but stare as Fitz wavers on the chair, leaning on his toes to try and reach the smoke alarm, concentration wrinkling up the features of his face. And in that moment, she is struck with a very odd, rather alarming fact.

She’s in love with Leopold Fitz. And perhaps she has been for a long time.

Maybe she needs to sit down.

 

_xx “All I want for Christmas is you.” xx_

 

It’s an odd feeling, being in love.

Actually, no. It isn’t. It feels exactly the same. She still scoffs at every single one of Fitz’s pathetic jokes, still rolls her eyes whenever he makes a hopeful quip about monkeys, still rebounds all his theories and builds up on them with some of her own.

No, it’s _knowing_ that she’s in love that makes all the difference. She now knows why her gaze lingers on him for longer than it’s supposed to, now knows why she’s started making up all sort of silly excuses to brush against his arm or set her head on his shoulder, now knows why her heart has developed a strange sense of fluttering whenever he’s around.

Honestly, it’s ridiculous that she’s so blown away by this revelation. It’s a biological emotion, caused by all the hormones flitting through her brain. And yet, she is undoubtedly surprised. How has it never occurred to her how much this stupid dork means to her? How has the passing thought of kissing Leo Fitz never sprung to mind? And why has the thought only come to her now, as Fitz is struggling with the smoke alarm, of all things?

“Jemma?” And now he’s waving a popcorn wrapper in front of her. “Are you okay?”

She grabs the wrapper from him and promptly disposes it in the bin. “Just thinking about my next project.”

 

 _xx “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,_ _  
_ _everywhere you go.” xx_

 

Because she is Jemma Simmons, and because she has two PhD’s and is a scientist at heart, she decides to treat it as a scientific experiment. So here’s the plan:

 **Problem:** Jemma Simmons thinks that she may be in love with one Leopold Fitz. And she’s unsure of Fitz’s feelings for her. Hence the experiment.   
**Research:** She knows everything about Fitz already. And technically, if you look at this from a biological point of view, she knows how love works.  
**Method:** Flirt, be generally coquettish, put her nubile young prodigy-ness to use.  
**Hypothesis:** Well, there’s two ways this could go. On one hand, Fitz might pick up on the signals and declare her undying love for him. Or, he _could_ pick up on the signals, be totally repulsed and end their friendship.

Right. Not much on the line then.

Time to get cracking.

 

 _xx “You’re all I need,_ _  
_ _underneath the tree.” xx_

 

Jemma’s done plenty of flirting before. There was a George from back home, a Tyler, two Caleb’s and a Nina once or twice. But never before has flirting been quite this awkward. And never before has it gone so completely over someone’s head.

“What do you want to watch?” Fitz asks, quite oblivious as she tugs her Christmas sweater off and pulls her hair out of its ponytail.

“Hmm? Oh.. how about.. _Love, Rosie_?” she tries, going for the most romantic movie her mind can conjure at that moment, and she’s regretting it even as the words are coming out of her mouth. Coincidentally, she realises that she’s picked a movie about best friends falling in love.

Fitz wrinkles his nose. “ _Love, Rosie_ ? What’d you want to watch _Love, Rosie_ for?”

“I don’t! Skye must be getting to my head,” she scoffs loudly. “ _Doctor Who_ , then, quick as you like.” She’s immediately glad that Fitz had shot down her idea of _Love, Rosie_ as soon as the theme song starts playing, and she throws herself on the couch. Before she can properly think about it, she tucks up her feet and curls into Fitz’s side, squeezing under his arm. She can feel him staring at her even though her gaze is trained resolutely on the screen.

“Simmons? Are you cold?” Before she can reply, he reaches over and throws her sweater at her. “Why’d you take your sweater off then, you numpty?”

Jemma tries not to audibly groan as she pulls the sweater over her head. It’s going to be a long night.

 

 _xx “On the twelfth day of Christmas,  
_ _my true love gave to me…” xx_

 

Flirting with Fitz is hard. It’s very, very difficult. Every little sly comment or sultry smile goes straight over his head, leaving her wanting to bang her head against the table every single time. Also.. it doesn’t help that she keeps forgetting she’s flirting, and slipping back into the easy friendship that they’ve had for as long as she can remember.

One minute she’ll be all, “Oh, Fitz, isn’t that so terribly _romantic_ ? If _only_ someone would do that for me,” and another minute she’ll be all, “That’s scientifically impossible!”, and really, it’s rather confusing.

And Fitz will respond with, “He just _sacrificed_ her, Simmons,” or “It’s a show about a time-travelling alien, Jemma,” to which she’ll just roll her eyes at both and wave it off with a retort of, “But _theoretically_ …”

Really, who would’ve thought this would be so difficult? After all, they’ve been friends for _years_.

But after all this flirting and cosying up to him on the couch and making too many innuendos to count, finally Fitz glances over at her.

“Jemma,” he says, grabbing her arm as she’s reaching for more popcorn, and her heart jumps in her throat, “Are you feeling alright?”

“What?”

“I mean.. are you feeling okay? You’ve been acting... weird all evening.” Fitz flushes, and she’d laugh if she weren't so completely mortified. Is her flirting honestly so bad that Fitz, two-PhD’s top-performing engineer child prodigy, thinks she’s _ill_?

“You know..” she says, and her voice is at least eight octaves higher than usual (even though that’s scientifically impossible - or at least she thinks it is), “I think I actually am feeling a bit unwell. I’m going to pop to the loo. Keep watching, I’ve seen this episode a million times.”

Technically, a lie, because she’s only seen the episode eleven times, and really, she abhors on exaggeration but - the loo! Right! Jemma promptly picks herself up and scrambles down the hallway, hoping that her hair will hide the red blossoming on her neck.

Once she’s in the bathroom, with the door safely locked and the lights on, she blows the hair out of her face and leans against the door. It appears she’s gotten herself into a sticky situation.. so there’s only one person who can talk her out of this.

_[JEMMA]: help needed!!_

_[SKYE]: do you have any idea what time it is over here?_

_[JEMMA]: sorry. i meant to call bobbi_

_[SKYE]: wow_

_[SKYE]: that really boosts my morale_

_[JEMMA]: Skye!! this is an actual emergency situation!!_

_[SKYE]: okay then, weirdo. can you call me? or this another sitwell situation._

_[SKYE]: because if this is another ss i’m out of here_

_[SKYE]: oh god it is isn't it? jemma?_

_CALLING SKYE…_

“Skye! I need your help,” Jemma spills as soon as the connection joins. “I’m in a very critical situation right now. What do I do?”

“Slow down, cowboy, tell me what’s up first.”

Jemma takes a deep breath. “Well.. As you know it’s Fitz and I’s annual Christmas Eve tradition tonight, and I should really just be enjoying myself but I can’t because I seem to have stumbled upon the conclusion that I might be in love with Fitz, as in both physically and mentally attracted to my best friend in a non-platonic way, and-”

“Simmons! Simmons, stop!” Skye’s laughing through the phone, and her glee is evident in her voice. “Slow down. Let me get this straight - you realised you have feelings for Fitz?”

“Yes,” she hisses, and she can feel herself blushing down to her toes.

“Oh my god,” Skye says excitedly. “I’ve been waiting for this moment since I met you two. Ugh, to think that I could have been twenty dollars richer..”

Jemma stares into the phone for a minute. “Twenty dollars… hang on. Daisy Johnson, were you _betting_ on this?”

“Emphasis on the _were_. We were doing great until Lance’s big British mouth got us in trouble. Bobbi shut down the whole operation when she found out.”

“Hmmph,” Jemma snorts. “I knew Bobbi was the better friend.”

“Hey! Also, can you not call me Daisy Johnson? It makes me sound like some sort of cheesy superhero or something.”

“Skye! I have bigger problems!” Jemma exclaims, eyes wide. She glances at the door nervously, hoping Fitz can’t hear anything that’s going on.

“Yeah, right, sorry. Spill.”

“Well I wasn’t sure how he felt about me but I knew I had to act, so I came up with a method to see if Fitz is harbouring any feelings for me, but he is being unexpectedly obtuse and all my signals seem to be flying _straight_ over his head, so I thought I should call Bobbi for some advice because she’s currently in a stable relationship and might offer some insight.”

There’s a long silence. And then uncontrollable laughter from the other end of the line. “Oh - my - god,” Skye squeezes out between laughs.

“Don’t laugh!” Jemma says, half indignant, half wailing. “This is a very serious situation!”

“Okay,” starts Skye, once she’s finally calmed down. “There are many things wrong with all the things you just said. Firstly, you wanted to call Bobbi instead of _me_? Because she’s in a stable relationship? Do I have to remind you how many break-ups she's had? With the same guy? I’m in a stable relationship too!”

“Yes, well, I think we’d both agree that Bobbi is the only one of us with lots of men flocking to be broken up with,” Jemma says honestly, placatingly, and Skye’s huff echoes over miles of land and sea.

“Sadly, that’s true. Anyway, second thing is - you tried to _science_ your way through your feelings?”

“I science my way through everything with Fitz!” Jemma says defensively.

“Not through love, you don’t. You can’t quantify love with science - and before you start babbling about testosterone and ruining love for me, hear me out,” Skye adds quickly, and Jemma snaps her mouth closed. “I know you’re a scientist, but I like to believe love isn’t a science. It just happens. Like.. you and Fitz are best friends. And before today, you’d never thought of him as anything else, right?”

“Yes,” Jemma says uncertainly.

“Yeah, and then you wake up one morning and you see that person doing something so stupid, like getting milk out of the fridge or pulling the curtains open, and you realise you’re in love with them. And then you realise that you’ve been falling in love with them for a while now. Not in an obvious way, not in a way you’d ever noticed, but everyday their smile makes your heart a little fuller and their mannerisms make your eyes a little brighter and their jokes make your laugh a little louder, and then there’s that one tipping point, and then, bam. You’re in love. It’s not science. It’s not magic. It just _is_.”

“Skye..” Jemma says, and she realises that her voice is thick. “That is both the nicest and the cheesiest thing you have ever said.”

“But it worked, didn’t it?”

“It did.”

“Gotcha,” says Skye, and Jemma just knows she’s smiling on the other end.

“So.. what do I do?” she asks, and she’s suddenly gripping the basin for support, staring at herself in the mirror, her with her long brown hair and her lumpy Christmas sweater, and wondering if Fitz could possibly be in love with her.

“Well, for starters, don’t flirt,” Skye laughs. “It’ll creep him out. You’ve been best friends for ages, turning around and batting your eyes at him will just make him confused.”

“What else?”

“Just be yourself. It’ll come naturally. You already love each other, Jemma,” Skye says kindly. “It can’t be such a big leap to be _in_ love with each other.”

Jemma nods, suddenly invigorated. “Okay. Okay, I can do that. Thank you, Skye.”

“Thank you. I’ve been waiting for this forever. And to think Bobbi was going to find out before me..”

“Skye?”

“Yeah, Jemma?”

“Next time, I'll call you first.”

“I _knew_ you had two PhD’s for a reason.”

 

 _xx “For this is Christmas, yes, Christmas my dear,_ _  
_ _it’s the time of year to be with the one you love.” xx_

 

When she comes back out, there’s two steaming mugs on the coffee table, and Fitz is sheepishly drawing his hand out from a box of Quality Street.

“You broke into the eggnog and chocolate without me,” she says, throwing herself down on the couch next to him.

“You were ages,” he replies, shrugging. “Here’s a green triangle.” Her favourite. She takes it with a smile.

“Sorry about that. Skye called. It was an emergency.” She hopes he can’t see her blush.

“In the bathroom?”

“Like I said, emergency.” And before he can ask any more questions, she hurriedly reaches past him to cup a mug of eggnog in her hands. “You made these?”

Fitz grins. “Hunter’s recipe, so they might be a bit boozy.”

“I am totally alright with that,” she says, and Skye’s right. It comes naturally when she curls up into Fitz’s side and reaches for the remote. “Mythbusters, then?”

And they slip into an easy rhythm again, just like that.

 

 _xx “I wanna see Christmas,  
_ _Christmas through your eyes.” xx_

 

So, she’s a little tipsy. Considerably tipsy. Okay, maybe just full out tipsy.

But she’s not tipsy enough to ignore the way Fitz’s finger trace patterns onto her shoulder, and she can’t even hide her ridiculous grin when she leans back to lie down on the couch, her head in his lap, hair spilling over his legs.

“You’re pretty amazing,” she tells him, because hey, she’s allowed to be loose with her tongue when she’s inebriated, right?

“Yeah, well, you’re pretty… Pretty,” Fitz says, somewhat sleepily, and she’s pleased to notice that his ears don’t even turn pink. He’s tipsy too.

“If you’re going to compliment me, at least think up something yourself,” she tells him lazily.

“I did think of that myself!”

She raises her eyebrows at him. “Firefly, Episode 7, Jaynestown. Simon and Kaylee.”

“Okay, so I underestimated your worryingly impressive knowledge of Firefly,” Fitz groans.

She snuggles closer, and maybe it’s the alcohol making her braver, but she thinks that a part of it has to do with Skye’s (quite frankly, surprising) impromptu speech from earlier. “Like you can talk, Fitz-o-pold. You’re the one who remembered the line in the first place.”

Fitz hums in response, and for a moment they just sit there, listening as the soft background voices of Amy and the Doctor chatter in the background. And then, somewhat hazily, a thought strikes her, and she turns to look at him slowly.

“Did you just use a pick-up line on me?” at the exact time that he says, “Did you just call me Fitz-o-pold?”

“I did call you that,” Jemma says matter-of-factly, and then she looks up at him curiously. “Did you use a pick-up line on me, Leo?”

“No.” But his face is bright red and he’s not looking at her.

“You totally did!”

“No, no I didn’t.”

She lurches up to sit upright, eyes bright in delight. “You did! Leo Fitz, do you view me as attractive?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You do! Oh, lord, you do,” she exclaims, and she’d be up on her feet and dancing if she were a little more drunk. Instead, she beams brilliantly at me. “Leopold Fitz, do you have non-platonic feelings for me, Jemma Simmons?”

“Not now I don’t,” he mutters, but he hasn’t stopped blushing and her grin gets even wider.

“And to think I went through that entire experiment - “

“Wait, you used me as an _experiment_?”

“ - and you just confessed to me naturally anyway. It seems as if Skye was right.”

“You consulted Skye on this?” Fitz splutters, and Jemma pauses.

“Well, I did mean to call Bobbi, but Skye’s surprisingly a better consultant anyway.” At his flabbergasted look, she adds, “It’s a long story.”

Fitz glances up at her, and Jemma notices for what seems like the millionth time how blue his eyes are. She wonders why it surprises her every time.

“So uh - does that mean that you - I mean, do you - I mean, are you-”

Yes, Jemma’s slightly tipsy, but that does not subdue the fact that _this is it_. This is the moment she’s been subconsciously waiting for since she first met this blue-eyed boy. She has Skye and the alcohol and Christmas Eve to thank, and she doesn’t think she can possibly ever be drunk enough to forget this moment.

“Whatever you’re going to say, the answer’s yes,” she tells him, trying not to look like she’s off her rocker, what with the brilliant grin she’s got. “You are my best friend, and I think that my feelings for you may have, a little tiny bit, strayed into the area of non-platonic terms."

He smiles at her, a slow, surprised, disbelieving smile, and he catches her off guard when his hand slips  into her own. “So..” he says carefully, “now that we’ve established that we are non-platonic best friends.. what do we do now?”

She pauses for a moment, and then she leans her head on his shoulder. “We finish this season of _Doctor Who_.”

“And then?”

“And then.. and then we explore the non-platonic aspects of this relationship,” she decides, and his pleased laugh echoes through the entire evening.

 

_Present Time…_

 

Kissing Fitz is not an anomaly. There are no explosions or fireworks or pounding in her heart. There’s no swelling music to a crescendo, there’s no awed coos from onlookers (although she’s sure they’ll get that from Skye later). There’s none of this, but there is Fitz’s lips slotted against her own, and Madonna’s voice coaxing Santa down the chimney in the background, and he tastes like burnt popcorn and eggnog and peppermint candy canes, and when she pulls away she swipes a thumb over his lips to get rid of the saliva.

“You’ve been getting into the candy stash,” she tells him, hoping that he can’t tell just how breathless she is.

Looks like he does, because he smiles smugly at her. “Oh, really? How can you tell?”

“Peppermint,” she murmurs, eyes flitting down to his lips again. “But it’s proven that multiple tests show more accurate results.”

“Love isn’t science.”

“Funny. That’s what Skye says.”

He huffs and she retests her theory, and she licks her lips again when she’s finished. “My theory is definitely correct. How’d you find the sweets?”

He shrugs. “You’re a terrible liar, Simmons.”

“I was protecting you from the dangers of dentist bills,” she tells him, angling her lips up to his again, but before she can seal the deal, his hand stills her gently, his breath sweet on her cheek.

“Hey,” he says softly, “How do I know this isn’t some drunk decision made by you?”

She grins up at him. “You don’t. How about we test this theory in the morning?”

“I’m okay with that,” he concedes, and she wraps her arms around his neck.

“I love you,” she says, easy as that. “Not alcohol induced, I promise.”

“You have always been a honest drunk,” Fitz admits, and he drops a kiss into her hair. “I love you too. That one is alcohol induced, but only because I wouldn’t be brave enough to say it otherwise.”

“Merry Christmas, Fitz.”

“Merry Christmas, Jemma.”

 

_xx “Have yourself a merry little Christmas…” xx_


End file.
